The four agents had heard the explosion from the other hallway and had rushed to check that the people in the main group were alright. Some were fighting in the hallway, but others were stranded in the courtyard among the growing crowd of zombies. It was becoming obvious that the chapel couldn't be protected indefinitely anymore, for now though, they'd probably be fighting through the night.

Marcus and his team moved out, using shotguns and handguns the three FBI agents set to work on the regular zombies outside, while Mallon braced the 7.62mm rifle to lay down some more firepower on the armoured frat boys advancing on Arthur and the others.

Marcus led his team room to room down the parallel corridor to the rest of the group, it was easy to pick off the zombies in a confined spaces, it was practically a zombie shooting gallery. The advance of the four trained combatants was rhythmic, two watching the hallway and two behind each clearing the rooms on either side of the hallway one after the other. They were still within earshot of the rest of the group, or at least they would have been if it wasn't for the noise of gunfire, so they had no idea if they were keeping up or not but Marcus and his team were nearly at the end of this corridor, they'd loop back round and meet up on the other side.

Marcus' nervous feeling had been dramatically vindicated just a few moments ago, as Arthur burst into the main hall dragging a wounded man behind him and shouting about the imminent arrival of the horde. The four agents had reacted at the first sound of distant screams, not wanting to cause a fuss they kept quiet and went to retrieve extra ammunition from their personal armoury, Rick had offered to go up the belltower and check out the courtyard situation, and the other three were waiting for him to report back when Arthur had returned.

"Looks like there might be some action after all chief"

"I think you might be right Adams, go fetch Mallon. Jackson, on me"

Marcus moved across the hall, eyes trained on the door, weapon ready at his side. There was a sound of banging coming through and some muffled screams.

"My team's on hand for a fight, Ezra."

The the screaming outside the door stopped but the banging persisted and seemed to be getting louder,

Jackson turned to Arthur;

"How many are out there?"

***

Meanwhile, Rick had made his way to the top of the belltower, the outlook was grim. It was difficult to guess the number of zombies and more were pouring into the courtyard every minute. There was one group fighting over the body of the zombie Travis had finished off earlier, they were moaning with a kind of moan Rick hadn't heard before, and with each call a few more zombies turned and started moving towards them. AS he was about to leave, he caught something fast moving at the edge of his vision, turning to look he was sightly relived to see it wasn't a running zombie, but he then came to the sad realisation that it was a girl fleeing from an open door at the front of the residential building, about ten zombies shuffled out after her as fast as they could. The panicked girl could have easily escaped if she had been looking where she was going, instead she tripped over a loose paving slab and landed face first of the floor, a couple of nearby zombies dived at her as soon as she fell.

"We don't get too much trouble here, and if you go out a few hundred yards the place is riddled with traps, but if the zombies decide they want to horde here there's not much we can do except bolt the doors and take pot shots from the steeple"

Inside everyone was already sitting down to eat, so Marcus and his crew joined them. The four men had their own room in the back of the chapel, even if it was noisy sleeping above the generator in the basement, it was still a lot more comfortable than staying in the main hall with everyone else. Marcus couldn't explain why but he felt uneasy about tonight, he made a mental note to double check his magazines before he went to sleep and finished up his spaghetti dinner.